Friday, May 11. 2012

Spring is here and that means on good weather days, the Freight Department crew is at work in our outdoor 'shop'. Here is a sort of photo essay (not much text) on work this week, lots of participants and onlookers encouraged to learn and get a 'feel' for this sort of blacksmith work and tools involved.

Some sections of the side at the bottom were badly rusted out. The
first step here is to use an acetylene torch to burn off the old rivet
heads. Gerry is using the torch and Victor
Humphreys ready to help as needed.

Peeling

The metal is being peeled back by Victor, Gerry, and Dick.

Next

After cutting the rivet heads form the outside, shards of old metal siding and layers of rust are removed. Some additional grinding of the torched off rivet stubs might need to be done. Then out with the small sledge hammer and a punch pin to poke the rivet out the back.

The Stubs

Not much left after the torching, but some medallions of remaining metal sides need to be peeled away, pried away, or otherwise coaxed to leave.

Punching

Then on to the satisfying part of punching out what remains of the rivets. Sort of like an 'aggression therapy' session. Jim Leonard takes a turn. That entire section is complete. The next step is to fit and cut a new metal patch, drill it for placing new rivets, weld it in, grind, fill, paint - you get the idea.

This is one interesting freight car. I've been browsing images on-line of these B&O wagon-top cars lately, and noticed a variety of lettering and logo styles on them. Whichever one is ultimately selected, the car is going to be a great piece in the collection.
Thanks,
Lucien

Why not put a different logo/lettering style on each side? As long as the background color is the same, and the style was used on the car at some point in its career, both sides would be correct, but different. No one would be able to see both sides at the same time anyway. It would almost be like getting two cars for the price of one.
REPLY: I have seen folks do that on their home layout, somewhat of a model railroader mentality. I think our primary mission is to preserve history, and in most of the departments that is the overriding consideration. For your suggestion, our car may have never carried one of the other schemes, as there were many variations, Then do you paint a fantasy number on the side with the made up scheme? Who knows which is history preserved vs history being rewritten?

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Brian L. about The Old Bag and the Silver BeaverTue, 03-17-2015 21:34Display first, operation later. It
needs to be watertight to be on
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Please help the cause by [...]

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